HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's Festival of Britain Mural

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

London Olympics 1948

HYDE'S LAST OLYMPIAN

In the early 1900s we had Hyde swimmers representing Great Britain in
the Olympic Games but many people will remember the town's last
Olympian, Lillian Preece.
Born on April 1st, 1928, Lillian learnt to swim when she was 11. Her
progress was so rapid that in the same year she won three titles at the
Hyde Seal annual gala. The war stopped all competitions but by the time
she was 19 she was setting ASA records and winning Cheshire County and
Northern Counties championships. In 1947 she was selected to represent
Britain in the European championships in Monte Carlo. Money was scarce
after the war so because the ASA was unable to provide the swimmers with
lightweight costumes an appeal was made to the newspapers, and Lillian
had to compete in Monte Carlo wearing a man's waterpolo swim suit. She
took part in the 4 x 100m relay team which was placed third.

Lillian at Monte Carlo in a waterpolo swimsuit.

The following year she was selected to represent Great Britain at the
Olympics in London. She stayed at the Eccleston Square Domestic Science
College along with swimmers from Belgium, France, Switzerland Australia,
Ireland and New Zealand. There were no proper training facilities at
the Empire Pool where everyone was trying to train at the same time and
arrangements had to be made at other pools in the area.

Olympic Games opening ceremony, 1948

After the Olympics there was a reception at Buckingham Palace.

More success and more championships followed and in 1952 Lillian was
chosen to captain the women's Olympic team in Helsinki where she reached
the semi-final of the 100 metres and was the fastest British
competitor.
During her swimming career she went to New Zealand, Helsinki,
Copenhagen, Paris, Nice, Monaco, Turin, Curacao, Dutch West Indies and
Panama and captained International teams on three occasions.
In 1953 Lillian was awarded the ASA Yeadon Trophy as Swimmer of the Year.
Unfortunately, in 1958 nine of her medals were stolen, including
commemorative medals from the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, and one for the
1950 Empire games, all bearing her name.

She left Hyde to live in Wallasey with her husband, himself a former
backstroke champion and captain of the Cheshire Waterpolo team, but
never lost contact with Hyde Seal and was an inspiration to many younger
swimmers.
Many people will remember this picture of Lillian which hung in Hyde Baths for many years.

Lillian Preece

.

Lillian eventually emigrated to Zimbabwe where she died in 2004.
Preece Close in Newton is named after her.

Many thanks to Marjorie Robinson for this fabulous account and all the photographs of a very talented lady, all of which are new to me !

6 comments:

I was a member of Hyde Seal at the age of eleven in 1963 and a girl named Sylvia who was 16 years old was such a good swimmer she was deemed to be a cert for the future Olympics. Don't know if she ever did.

Thank you for this wonderful tribute to my Mom which was just brought to my attention. She was always so incredibly proud of being from Hyde and having represented Hyde Seal.As a youngster in 1963 she took my brother and I to the Hyde Seal pool where she had spent so many hours swimming and we too had the opportunity top swim there.She truly was a Hyde Seal for life.

Search This Blog

TEAM HYDONIAN

Visitors From --- (01/10/10)

We have now been viewed in 168 Countries by over 975,238 unique visitors.... great team work... and fantastic support by so many of you.
Thank You

A place of interest for Hydonians.

If you have any pictures, stories, memories, or items from or about Hyde and you would like to share them here with other like minded Hydonians please get in touch with us. Either leave us a comment or even better email us:

Tom, Dave, Paul and I would like to say thank you to everyone for contributing to this blog in some small way - even if that means just reading it! It's been more of a success than we could ever have dreamt of and that's all down to you ! It was our intention to get Hyde "on the record" as it were and it seems to be heading in the right direction. We are very proud of Hyde and would like it's history to live on!